LEWISBURG – The heroin epidemic took center stage at a meeting in Union County Monday. The Susquehanna Valley Conservatives hosted state senator Gene Yaw (R-23rd, Loyalsock Township) and Union County commissioner chairman Preston Boop talking about the problem.
Yaw says the bipartisan Center for Rural Pennsylvania held eight hearings around the state talking with parents, school administrators, clergy and others to understand the heroin epidemic, “It’s a basic primer on what’s wrong and what’s going on. We’ve had police officers, we’ve had doctors, we’ve had social service people, we’ve had the physician general, we’ve had judges.”
Yaw says there is a lot of money being spent trying to help addicts and support families, but it’s not a concerted effort, “Our system is very fragmented. We need to get them collected. Nobody wants to give up their own little piece of the rock, so to speak.”
Boop says it will take a unified approach that tackles the problem from several angles, “It needs to be comprehensive. Not everybody agrees on the solution. As the senator said, there are some territorial issues that are going on, so until we can resolve those, we don’t have everybody pulling on the same team.”
You can watch all of the hearings held by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania online at www.senatorgeneyaw.com. The Susquehanna Valley Conservatives are planning to hold a larger, regional event to continue to search for strategies to combat the heroin epidemic.
